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the council seemed to many to be unwilling to tackle Amsterdam’s acute housing shortage, neglecting the needs of its poorer citizens in favour of business interests. It was this perception that fuelled the squatter movement, which coalesced around a handful of symbolic squats. The first major incident came in March 1980 when several hundred police evicted squatters from premises on Vondelstraat. Afterwards, there was widespread rioting, but this was minor in comparison with the protests of April 30, 1980 – the coronation day of Queen Beatrix – when a mixed bag of squatters and leftists vigorously protested both the lavishness of the proceedings and the expense of refurbishing Beatrix’s palace in Den Haag. Once again there was widespread rioting and this time it spread to other Dutch cities, though the unrest proved to be short-lived.

Now at its peak, Amsterdam’s squatting movement boasted around ten thousand activists, many of whom were involved in two more major confrontations with the police – the first at the Lucky Luyk squat, on Jan Luykenstraat, the second at the Wyers building, when, in February 1984, the squatters were forcibly cleared to make way for a Holiday Inn, now the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The final showdown – the Stopera campaign – arrived with the construction of the Muziektheater/Stadhuis complex on Waterlooplein. Thereafter, the movement faded away, at least partly because of its repeated failure to stop the developers, who now claim, with some justification, to be more sensitive to community needs.

History |

The 1990s and the rise of Pim Fortuyn

In the 1990s, Amsterdam’s street protests and massive squats became an increasingly distant memory, but some of the old ideas – and ideals – were carried forward by the Greens, who attracted – and continue to attract – a small but significant following in every municipal and national election. One of the recurring political problems was that the city’s finely balanced system of proportional representation brought little rapid change, often getting mired in interminable compromise and debate. The same is true nationally, where politics has long seemed a bland if necessary business conducted between the three main parties, the Protestant-Catholic CDA coalition, the Liberal VVD and the Socialist PVDA. However, the entire political class received a jolt in the national elections of May 2002 when a brand-new rightist grouping – Leefbaar Neederlands (Liveable Netherlands) – led by Rotterdam’s Pim Fortuyn, swept to second place behind the CDA, securing seventeen percent of the national vote. Stylish and witty, openly gay and a former Marxist, Fortuyn managed to cover several popular bases at the same time, from the need for law and order through to tighter immigration controls. Most crucially, he also attacked the liberal establishment’s espousal of multiculturalism even when the representatives of minority groups were deeply reactionary, anti-gay and sexist. Politically, it worked a treat, but a year later Fortuyn was assassinated and his party rapidly unravelled, losing most of its seats in the general election of January 2003 (see "The early 2000s – Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali").

One of the reasons for Fortuyn’s electoral success reflected the other shock to the Dutch system, which came with the publication of a damning report on the failure of the Dutch army to protect the Bosnian Muslims ensconced in the UN safe-haven of Srebrenica in 1995. Published in April 2002, the report told a tale of extraordinary incompetence; the UN’s Dutch soldiers were inadequately armed, but still refused American assistance, and watched as Serb troops separated Muslim men and women in preparation for the mass executions, which the Dutch soldiers then did nothing to stop (though they were never involved). In a country that prides itself on its internationalism, the report was an especially hard blow and the whole of the PVDA-led government, under Wim Kok, resigned in April 2002.

History |

The early 2000s – Theo van Gogh and Ayaan Hirsi Ali

The general election of 2003 was a